Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am going to push back gently on the work-from-home piece impacting this in any really great meaningful sense. I don't think the GNWT has scads of people working from home currently; I could be wrong. But I would also be very much interested in whatever documentation that the Minister is comfortable sharing with the Department of Finance's work on that own versus lease mix, and perhaps she could commit to sharing that with committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay. Thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't speak to whether it's scads or not. There's -- I mean, we have the remote work policy but there's also a lot of folks who do work from home in not necessarily formalized arrangements or agreements, and the challenge -- and it has slowed the work in terms of trying to realign lease footprints because that would then -- if we really realign what the lease footprint is for departments, that reduces the amount of workspace available. But if people are working from home in an -- sort of in an unofficial or un-organized sense, for lack of a better description, then they they're not reducing the footprint of the lease because they're keeping the office space even when they may be working from home. So the intention is to be able to be -- you know, notwithstanding what might be in the headlines for other governments, the intention for us is to remain a workplace that is flexible and adaptable. But whether we can then take advantage of that to change the lease footprint, as I say, to this point unless there's a more standardized approach to folks working from home or working remotely, makes difficult to translate into a reduction of the lease footprint. So that effort has not gone away; it's just trying to figure out how best to align those two -- those two goals in a way that makes sense and doesn't actually undermine them by then forcing people to do things or to not have workspaces that actually undermines the very same morale issues that we're trying to address.

As for that mix, Mr. Chair, I believe the Department of Infrastructure does maintain an eye on having a good mix. And I don't want to commit them without going back to the Minister, but I expect it would be able -- we can probably share that. So, again, just subject to making sure I am not making a promise that I can't keep, I think we can share that. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing further from me on this one.

Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to start by asking why there's a projected deficit for the Yellowknife airport revolving fund for this 2025-2026 fiscal year of almost $1.8 million. What has happened to lead to that deficit? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this is a result of operating cost increases, and that, in particular, is due to more severe weather events which then results in higher costs associated with providing runway clearing and -- runway clearing in particular and related other cost pressures, Mr. Chair. Costs of utilities, that certainly affects the government as much as it affects everyone else, and that has been an unexpected cost pressure over 2025 beyond what had been in the plan. And I suppose last and not least, Mr. Chair, would simply be that there's the airport improvement fees don't necessarily go directly in as an offset. There is an amount where if the airport improvement fee amount is not being used in a given year for a capital expense that it doesn't get accounted for quite -- under an accounting standard, doesn't get it offset the same way as it might. So increased costs with severe weather, increased costs for utilities, and not being offset. Thank you.

Thank you. I will go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I don't recall, but maybe the Minister can remind us, in this past year what extreme weather events or unusual weather events the Yellowknife airport has experienced versus other years. I know every year there's various kinds of challenging weather but is there something different that happened this past year, or what do we -- do we expect the cost of dealing with weather to just continue for every year hereafter? Like, what different happened in terms of weather in this past year? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's actually the freezing rain that -- the humidity and freezing rain that we had back in -- I don't remember the month exactly, but it was early this fall where when we have conditions on the runways or conditions at the airport that are -- that result as -- again, particularly with freezing rain or wet snow earlier or heavier snow earlier in the season, that is what changes it. So typically in a year you can have just as -- and I don't have a year-over-year comparison but just by way of some notes, there would be, you know, three or four unusual type events such as this, but I am told that in the last recent time it's hit over 20 in a season and that the budget for this, the maintenance can be actually utilized right -- well, in the fall and before -- yeah, before the fiscal year is out. So could certainly look at getting that breakdown for Members if there's an interest in that. But, again, as I say, it's particularly freezing rain events that are noted to me here as being one that drives these cost pressures. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I will go to Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And so moving forward, is the Yellowknife airport expected to prevent such deficits in the future, for example, by increasing fees? Do they have some responsibility to not run a deficit, or is it just sort of acceptable that they might come to us each each year with a deficit? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It certainly would not be acceptable that there's running deficits in general. The hope, of course, is that there's not a running deficit and that much as it was initially set up to do, that the report airport revolving fund can ultimately become self-sustaining. The last several years have had a number of different challenges and not the least of which first was although the airport was on a trajectory of receiving a high number -- high volume in terms of passengers and flights, COVID-19 shut everything down there, relatively speaking. And then the 2023 wildfire evacuation, although numbers were coming back, that evacuation resulted in fairly significant overtime costs which reduced the malleability of that budget so that -- just as we were coming back on. And here we are again, the flight numbers are up. Not quite what they were pre-COVID, but coming back. But then, again, the extreme weather does continue to drive those costs up and now added to that would be increased utilities. So yes, the short answer is it would be nice to remove the deficit and it would be ideal that the revolving fund can be self-sustaining. At this moment in time, we're not there yet. I believe there is a fair bit of work happening with the YZF Airport Authority and with as well the EAC, which I believe is the environment -- Economic Advisory Council working to get a capital project or capital improvement plan put forward which could then create a more sustaining ecosystem. Obviously, on top of all this, we've seen in advance procurement notice from the department of defence. Obviously, that's -- that's not ours to drive and it's only early days on that, but that may well force an acceleration of these plans. Thank you.

Thank you. I am going to go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to turn next to increased construction and maintenance costs. Well, first for both the Mackenzie Valley winter road and the Tlicho winter road. Mackenzie Valley winter road is facing increased costs of about $2.5 million. The Tlicho winter road of about $4.26 million. Can the Minister explain why these costs were unexpected, why they're coming to us in supplementary appropriations. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am mindful of time so I will try and be quick, but there's different -- different cost pressures affecting each of these winter roads. So the Mackenzie Valley winter road right now is over 900 kilometers of road. There's -- there -- notwithstanding the fact that barges went through -- more so in the last year, there's still obviously some communities that were experiencing reductions in the barging services. And so there's been a much greater uptake this winter on fuel -- on demand on the winter road, as well a shipment of -- up to Colville Lake with long overdue, if I may say, school portables meant that there had to be an expansion of that winter road. That is something that -- there is a base budget that is in the annual budgets that doesn't necessarily accommodate these kinds of increases year over year.

With respect to the Tlicho winter road, that is some 300, 400 kilometers up to Gameti and Wekweeti. And in this case, it was negotiations that were taking place under the Tlicho Infrastructure Cooperation Agreement, and those did not conclude in time to be reflected other than through a supplementary appropriation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I will go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister tell us, then -- so if the Tlicho winter road increases are a result of a sort of negotiated increase in the cost, can the Minister tell us sort of what was the base amount or the amount that was assumed in this budget and then what will be the new amount when you add this $4.264 million, just to give us a sense of scale of how much the contract is increasing by. Thank you, Mr. Chair.